This invention relates to a workbench apparatus, particularly for working on Diesel engine injection pumps, and broadly to a workbench apparatus adapted for supporting and positioning at will any types of mechanical or electrical apparata to be processed or serviced.
As is known, there exist a variety of Diesel engine injection pumps, which differ from one another both by their design and overall dimensions.
These pumps, which constitute a basic and characteristic item of equipment on Diesel engines, must be periodically checked, tested, serviced, and repaired or altered, at scheduled intervals, at workshops equipped with special work and test benches.
A basic and important step of each such operations is the securing of the pumps to the bench; the more secure is the installation of the pump to the bench, the easier is the carrying out of the operation itself.
In actual practice, since the operations carried out on such injection pumps are both numerous and varied, for positioning and supporting a pump on the bench, an apparatus is needed which enables the pump to be secured firmly in several different positions, i.e. positions which are mutually rotated both with respect to a vertical rotation axis and to a horizontal rotation axis.
Currently, such requirements are met by workbench apparata which comprise essentially a base rotatably supporting a turret wherethrough a bar extends which is directed perpendicularly to the turret axis. With said bar, there engage brackets and other movable elements which may be connected to the pump to result in a sort of enclosure for parts thereof, and both the bar and turret can be rotated about their respective axes and locked at selected positions.
It has been found that such apparata only lend themselves for supporting and positioning injection pumps having in-line pumping units, whereas other pumps must be supported and positioned in a wholly empirical manner on the workbench, using a rather primitive type of equipment which is scarcely suitable for the job and does not allow the pump to be disposed in any required positions.
Moreover, it has been found that the improved workbench apparatus mentioned hereinabove has considerable disadvantages even when in-line pumps are installed thereon; for example, the pumps do not occupy a stable position on the apparatus, and upon releasing a locking device for said cross bar, to change the pump position, the pump receives no support.